“You hear other big names say, ‘Yeah, I always knew I would do it.’ But I didn’t know!” she says, adding that she would have been happy just leaving the NSA and supporting herself as a “road comic” living with lower expectations.

“I guess because I’m more practical, the odds were that I was not going to get to this level,” says Sykes, 52. “I could be a working comic, but not with this much success.”

Sykes has performed standup since the 1990s and first gained notice as a performer and Emmy-winning writer on HBO’s “The Chris Rock Show,” which aired from 1997-2000. Since then, she’s established herself as one of the most consistently funny and on-point standups in the field. She’s also landed a string of specials and movie roles (including this year’s “Bad Moms” and the animated “Ice Age” films) and acted alongside A-list sitcom talent like Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Veep”).

She says her new show is a nod to musician Nina Simone, whose tumultuous career, personal life and activism were chronicled in the Oscar-nominated 2015 Netflix documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?”

“I was trying to figure out what happened — how did I get into the situation that I’m in?” Sykes says. “Not that I regret anything at all, but just a reflection of my life and also life in general — like what’s happening in the world and, of course, politics.”

Wanda Sykes bring her comedy act — recorded in May in LA — to EPIX Friday night.Photo: EPIX

In the special, she deftly weaves the personal with the political. Sykes, who came out as a lesbian in 2008, lives in LA with her French wife, Alex Niedbalski, and their 7-year-old twins, Olivia and Lucas — all of whom are white. She fills the audience in on her home life, joking about having “f—ed up my legacy” as “a minority in my own home” and the historical irony of a black woman caring for her all-white family.

“A lot of my comedy comes from a place of reality. It’s what I’m living. It has to be grounded in something,” says Sykes. “When my parents visit, my mother has some of the same revelations I have cooking dinner. She looks up and is like, ‘Oh, my God. I’m cooking for white people. How did this happen?’” she says, with a laugh. “It says a lot.”
Concerning politics, Sykes also doesn’t hold back on the presidential election — and tossing zingers at Donald Trump.

“I’m just tired of hearing, ‘He has to learn how to be presidential, he has to learn how to be measured, he has to learn not be so impulsive,’” she says of Trump. “These are things I’m teaching my 7-year-olds. He’s 70. It’s too late. That’s who he is. He’s not all of a sudden going to become a decent human being.”

When asked whether it’s a grind to continue doing topical standup at her level, Sykes said she still loves the challenge of performing.

“My wife asked me not too long ago about when will I stop or retire. And I said, ‘I’m a comedian — we don’t retire. They pretty much show you the door,’” she says. “When I do a show and no one shows up, then I’m retired.”